Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput will be part of a U.S. delegation to an international forum next week on anti-Semitism and other religious intolerance, the Bush administration announced Tuesday.
The nine-member delegation to Cordoba, Spain, will be led by Republican New York Gov. George Pataki and will include two rabbis, the president of a Muslim group and diplomats versed in Europe and the Holocaust.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the appointments. The conference, June 8 and 9, is sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes 55 nations.
Chaput’s experience serving on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, created by Congress in 1998 to advise the president on the issue, played a role in his latest appointment, said Sergio Gutierrez, spokesman for the Denver Archdiocese.
President Bush appointed Chaput to the commission in 2003 and reappointed him in 2004 to a two-year term.
Gutierrez said Chaput has been in contact with the Vatican, and officials there support the appointment and are working to ensure that Chaput will reflect the thinking of Pope Benedict XVI.
Last month, Chaput shared the stage with Bush at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
Chaput’s latest appointment was praised by Gale Kahn, area director of the American Jewish Committee, which honored Chaput with a humanitarian award.
“He’s a great voice, certainly, for anti-Semitism and religious tolerance,” Kahn said. “He is right there with us all the time on those issues.”
Chaput met with AJC representatives before the release of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” last year. Chaput praised the film, while the AJC and other Jewish groups believed the film was unfair in how it portrayed the Jewish role in Jesus’ last hours.
“He wasn’t dismissive,” Kahn said of Chaput. “He said, ‘If you are concerned, I am concerned with you.”‘
Staff writer Eric Gorski can be reached at 303-820-1698 or egorski@denverpost.com.
